9 Years Ago

On this date in 2001, if you had told me I had 9 years to live, that I would move to Chicago and then Boston, get two degrees, marry an amazing man, buy a house and give birth to a daughter, I would have thought that to be a pretty darn good deal.

On this date in 2001, I had my whole life ahead of me. And so did all my peers. We had just graduated from high school one month before.

On tomorrow's date in 2001, I got a phone call around 9AM. It was Karen FitzPatrick's father, John. He identified himself then said, "Have you heard?" Silence ensued. I knew by the tone of his voice what he was going to say. He explained that Karen had been dispatched to fight a small brush fire that got out of control. It had claimed her life and three others.

Karen died on this date in 2001.

I felt stupid. I had received a postcard from her about a month beforehand,

and saw her two weeks prior ("We've GOT to hang out," we both said) at the Warehouse Theater parking lot. She was leaving church and I was going to rehearsal. But I didn't even know she had gone into firefighting. Some friend.

I don't really remember what happened next. I know I called my mom, think I called my sister, called Lacy. Later that day Mr. Rees, Erik, Jeremy and I were all going to visit Mrs. Yergen in the hospital post-surgery. When arriving solo at the hospital, I could immediately tell they did not know and the burden of sending the message was on me. It was so incredibly hard, one of the harder things I'd had to do up to then. We chose not to tell Mrs. Yergen. After that Cheryl came over to my house and we talked through our disbelief. That night we had rehearsal for whatever show we were doing at the Warehouse Theater. I couldn't control my sobbing while I played.

The following days are a blur. We held the memorial at Stone Church, and Cheryl & I did the music. I'll never forget the version of "I'll Fly Away" we did. Lacy & I sat next to each other and one's sobs would spur on the other's. The memorial for all four firefighters was at the Sundome. The procession was miles long. Civic employees from all over were in attendance.

Our parents must have felt so helpless during this time.

Grief is a strange thing. I will never quite understand. You can't measure it. You can't anticipate it's depth. You can't simulate it. You don't know when it will pop up again. It's just grief.

Her death was the first impactful one in my life. I am so glad she trusted in the Lord and that her lifesong still proclaims His glory.

9 years ago I lost one of my best friends. I've had 9 more years than her. And in spite of all that has happened in these 9 years, I still feel as though I've got my whole life in front of me. I don't know if there will ever come a time when I can say "I've lived long enough." That's what makes death so hard sometimes.

I think, if she were still here, she would have had three kids by now. It's fun to imagine her being a mom, just for a moment.

I'm fine. Today I'm thinking about who she was, who she was to me, what happened, and what has happened since. Nobody in my present life knows of my loss from 9 years ago. Except a few friends and family who live thousands of miles away. It's a very strange reality to reconcile.

Five-hundred-twenty-five-thousand-six-hundred minutes.

How do you measure a year in the life?

(Or in this case, four-million-seven-hundred-thirty-thousand-four-hundred)